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Planetary invasion
Taking planets from enemies while preserving (most of) their civilian population has many benefits: those planets start making credits faster, build large ships faster and contribute more research units than low-pop colonies. But organizing and invasion on a fully-populated homeworld is a rather daunting task that involves 100-200 troops or 50-100 tanks. Producing them requires lots in-game money and lots of micro-management. This article should make reader understand needed tasks better. A good article discussing Troops - Max strength, clones vs robotic troops, cost balance, training.. can also be found on matrix forums: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3999794&mpage=1� To-do list for planetary invasion To successfully invade a planet a player needs to bring enough troops, tanks and/or special forces to enemy's colony. So player needs to: # produce invasion units, # transport them to enemy's planet, # win the ensuing planetary battle and # win the planet again if conquered population rebels. Producing invasion units Galactopedia: "Troops" and "Ground Combat" offer good explanation on ground units interaction. What it does not explain is a player should not go to war if he doesn't have either big cash reserve (significantly over 1M with balanced income and expenses) or large positive cash flow (200k+), because just maintenance of 50 armor units will take away 100k, and fleet to fight AI another 150k. All units have some costs to produce and additional cost to maintain. It could be economically efficient to build units on more than one planet to avoid those maintenance costs of already-built units, that just sit on a planet for several game-years waiting for other queued units to be built. It would also be beneficial to research unit-improvement techs BEFORE units are built, since existing units don't improve with better tech. What invasion force is needed? Player can obtain info on defensive strength of a planet by hoovering mouse pointer over Troops line in the bottom left pane of a selected planet. For a successful invasion about twice as strong force is needed. However if invasion is prolonged, defender will build additional units that strengthen the defenses, so player can consider bringing three times as strong invading force. Another benefit of bringing significantly more invasion units are additional combat bonuses like "Armored breakthrough" 25% attack bonus. One way to make invasion units stronger is to "train" them by invading less-defended planets first, or destroy pirates' buildings on player's planets. Since units get experience per battle, will each fight make them some 15-20% stronger. Player should make sure to drop ALL units at once, so even if battle lasts only one day, they are involved and will get the experience. Lastly, troop generals also affect battles greatly, so they should always be transported and dropped with invasion units. BTW generals should always have at least one unit to command, else they'll quickly start developing bad perks like "Drunk". To summarize: when starting war have lots of cash, build tanks on 2-3 planets, use 3-fold as strong force, and "train" them on easier targets before invading a HW. Transporting invasion units Galactopedia has some good info on that regard, however achieving the goal of dropping all troops in the shortest time possible can not be achieved with troops dispersed among many warships, so a specialized design is preferred. A cost-effective design is to put on it as much troop compartments as possible, disregarding all but token weapons and defenses while retaining just moderate mobility. It should never fight, and should drop troops only when space control over planet/system is achieved. Best way to use it is to merge all troop carriers into just one fleet, that waits outside but close to soon-to-be-invaded system. When space control is achieved, a player should select that fleet from the left fleet pane and just right-click on the planet. If all troop carriers are of the same design, they'll jump in and drop troops almost simultaneously. When planet is taken, player should check for eventual battle damage, load all troops and generals and send fleet in the safe location again. If AI invades that planet and takes it back it will be done with small army, so player has 2 benefits: that army has weakened defenses of a planet where it has been taken from, and player got another planet to "train" his troops before serious assault. Category:Ground combat Category:Invasion